Ruminations on law and life

No lawyer love in Nevada.

The mandatory-membership State Bar of Nevada has been on a troll. Petal by petal, Nevada lawyers are finding the Daisy Oracle’s divining just one answer. When it comes to their bar’s affections — she loves them not.

Not too long ago Nevada’s bar was rightly criticized for indifferent handling of bar complaints. Inattention caused a backlog of attorney complaints. In response, the bar hired a new prosecutor to head Nevada’s Office of Bar Counsel. But in the minds of some lawyers, the result was an overreaction — an excessively prosecutorial pendulum swinging way past the other side.

Alongside this perceived heightened hostility, the Nevada bar’s tone-deaf governing board started amping up a series of alarmingly adverse initiatives — each a solution in search of a problem. Fortunately, thanks to member uproar some of what the board spewed out was dispersed away — like a speech code petition that would have unconstitutionally restricted lawyer free speech, free exercise of religion, and freedom of association.

Likewise, another ill-conceived, under-studied board initiative to impose trust account random audits was also denied by a dubious state supreme court concerned about the untold costs on lawyers forced to pay for audits — whether they were warranted or not.

But other board schemes did not go by the wayside. These include a needless increase in mandatory continuing education hours via a new mental health and addiction credit requirement and a freshly implemented $100 bar tax on lawyer advertising. In addition, Nevada lawyers with the temerity to take continuing legal education courses from non-bar accredited providers are now subject to what amount to penalty fees.

But that’s not all. Already one of the top five highest cost to practice states, things will get exponentially more expensive for Nevada’s lawyers if a pending petition to require legal malpractice insurance gets approved. Like the board’s other harebrained ideas, it’s also evoked strong member dissent.

The malpractice insurance proposal — a boon to insurers — is the governing board’s lame response to recent news stories about lawyer theft and exploitation of the vulnerable.

These days, it’s hard to keep up with all the meddling. As with all mandatory bars, those in power prefer to operate below-the-radar with as little notice as possible. Remarkably, some lawyers in Nevada have started to pay attention at the wave of noxious Nanny-state runoff flowing from the board.

When will it end? It’s hard to say. The past several bar presidents have been cookie-cutter activists self-anointed with their own overweening meddlesome mandates each seemingly trying to outdo their immediate predecessor.

It’s been said legacy is just another name for ego. And do these folks have egos. In April, the Nevada Bar unveiled a Past Presidents Wall of Fame and feted these erstwhile ‘luminaries’ at a reception held at bar headquarters.

The easiest money to spend is always somebody else’s — such as the mandatory monies of Nevada lawyers forced to join and fund the State Bar of Nevada in order to practice law.

At long last some lawyers are waking up. They’re getting restless, rebellious and restive. Three of the four incumbent board members in Clark County, for instance, were just voted out of office following board elections this past June. They were replaced by three reform-minded governors. Unfortunately, the three reformers will be outnumbered on the 15-member board. But it’s a start. Kudos to Nevada’s Clark County lawyers for administering an overdue reality-check. By contrast there’s nary a reformer in sight on the Arizona bar’s board.

Regulator or Trade Association?

Mandatory bar associations can’t figure out whether they’re regulators fretfully charged with disciplining lawyers to protect the public or fun-loving trade associations looking out for lawyers.

It gets confusing even for bar governing boards let alone bar members. All mandatory bars suffer from the same regulator/trade association confusion. A lawyer recently running for bar president in Texas, for example, brought a refreshing take on his presidential vision. On his campaign website, he declared, “the State Bar should be in the customer service business with Texas lawyers being the customers.”

More often, particularly in Nevada, the vision is anything but customer-friendly. Just the same on its website, the Nevada Bar says its “Mission is to govern the legal profession, to serve our members, and to protect the public interest.”

First do no harm.

In Arizona, governing board members are required to take the pledge. Unfortunately, it’s the wrong pledge. Having imposed a “Code of Conduct” on board members, the Arizona Bar requires their loyalty and “respect” for “the validity of the Board’s decisions and their value to the organization, even if not in the voting majority.” The Code further obligates board members to “uphold and enhance the reputation and public image of the Bar.”

More preferable in my opinion is an oath modeled on the physicians’ Hippocratic Oath. Before taking office, mandatory bar board members everywhere should be forced to swear to “primum non nocere,”– first, do no harm. Help if you can but at least do no harm.

This new pledge, though, is merely a stopgap. The true remedy is to uncouple the regulatory and the trade association functions performed by mandatory bars. Eliminate the confusion and the inherent conflict of interest of trying to serve two masters — the public and lawyers. It can’t be done. Recent board history in Nevada amply bears this out.